Throughout my American Nations series (based on the books American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodard and Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America by David Hackett Fischer) I’ve talked about how North America is divided into distinct ethnocultural regions based on historic settlement patterns.
These various regions are visible in many ways, from dialect, politics, enlistment in the military, support for marijuana, average IQ (Maps of the American Nations), attitudes towards the death penalty, abortion, guns, same-sex marriage, and school corporal punishment, as well as overall health, lifespan, and behaviors such as smoking and drug use (More Maps of the American Nations & HBD Is Life and Death):
Support for same-sex marriage
Previously I’ve established that these boundaries reflect genetic differences among different Americans in different places. This is because all human behavioral traits are heritable, with “nurture” (as it’s commonly thought of) playing a minimal to nonexistent role in each. This means that genetic differences between different peoples lead to differences in their behavioral traits, which, collectively, manifests as cultural differences. As John Derbyshire put it, “if dimensions of the individual human personality are heritable, then society is just a vector sum of a lot of individual personalities.” See my Behavioral Genetics Page for more.
It’s also important to note that (as I’ve discussed previously in this series) assimilation is largely an illusion. Cultural and behavioral characteristics can persist for many generations as long as the people who exhibit them remain.
And now, a new paper in Nature bears out the genetic roots of the American nations. In “Clustering of 770,000 genomes reveals post-colonial population structure of North America” (Han et al, 2017), we see that Americans can easily be partitioned into distinct regional clusters:
These clusters map very closely to the boundaries of the American nations, as we can see when they’re superimposed:
Using the vast genomic database of Ancestry.com, the authors were able to partition Americans into distinct clusters. As the authors report:
Here we identify very recent fine-scale population structure in North America from a network of over 500 million genetic (identity-by-descent, IBD) connections among 770,000 genotyped individuals of US origin. We detect densely connected clusters within the network and annotate these clusters using a database of over 20 million genealogical records. Recent population patterns captured by IBD clustering include immigrants such as Scandinavians and French Canadians; groups with continental admixture such as Puerto Ricans; settlers such as the Amish and Appalachians who experienced geographic or cultural isolation; and broad historical trends, including reduced north-south gene flow. Our results yield a detailed historical portrait of North America after European settlement and support substantial genetic heterogeneity in the United States beyond that uncovered by previous studies.
To investigate recent, fine-scale population structure in the United States, we leveraged one of the largest human genetic data sets assembled to date: genome-wide genotypes of 774, 516 individuals born (96%) or currently residing (4%) in the United States (Supplementary Table 1; Supplementary Fig. 1). All individuals were genotyped at 709, 358 autosomal single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) using the Illumina Human OmniExpress platform as part of the AncestryDNA direct-to-consumer genetic test, and have consented to participate in research (Methods). In this sample, we analysed patterns of identity-by-descent (IBD)16, which have been shown to reveal signatures of recent demographic history3,17,18,19,20,21. If two individuals share an ancestor from the recent past, they will likely carry one or more long chromosomal segments inherited IBD from that ancestor.
In short, their giant sample and rich genealogical data allowed them to detect large patterns of shared ancestry in living Americans. And, as expected the American nations clearly emerge from the genetic data.
How did this pattern emerge? In short, this is ultimately the result of the four British folkways of Albion’s Seed. Here the genetic data show that they remain alive and well. Previously, in my post Genes, Climate, and Even More Maps of the American Nations, we saw that the founding British colonists came from distinct parts of the British Isles and settled in different parts of North America. The founding British stock are themselves visible in the genetic data, as we saw from fine-scale analysis of Britain (Leslie et al 2015, ungated link here):
As I put it in Genes, Climate, and Even More Maps of the American Nations:
Genetic differences between groups of people, once established, persist as long as the different groups do until diluted or erased by admixture (this is known as the Founder effect). As well, new differences can emerge within a single population as selective migration leads this initial population to fission into two or more daughter populations (see here and here – more on that to follow).
In short, tiny genetic differences between two groups of people can lead to large differences in behavioral traits. This extents to all facets of human behavior – a point driven home by a recent paper correlating linguistic diversity across Europe with genetic diversity there (Longobardi et al, 2015).
But why do the American nations follow the pattern that they do? It turns out that this pattern was hardly a coincidence.
The founding colonial groups landed at various spots across the North American east coast:
From there, the nations spread westward across the continent. However, they did so in a certain way, as the next map will show:
Geography dictated the settlement of the country:
An example of this process can be seen in the settlement of the “upper Midwest” (Hudson, 1986):
Settlers moved to places where they could easily transplant their way of life. Areas of similar climate obviously aided in that aim. In the upper Midwest, Yankee and Midland settlers were joined by German and Scandinavian immigrants (as detailed in the preceding posts), who were also coming to areas climatically similar to their old homes.
These settlements have left their genetic as well as cultural mark across the continent.
Now, it’s important to understand what these data actually mean. These clusters do not mean that the descendants of the colonial settlers are numerically dominant in their respective regions, because they are not. Over the course of the continent’s history, the descendants of the original settlers were joined by subsequent immigrants, mostly other Europeans, who themselves settled in different parts of the country. As we saw previously in Demography Is Destiny, American Nations Edition:
(Tables are from Fulford, Petkov, and Schiantarelli, 2015). These other ethnic groups have a huge impact on the character of the modern United States (and Canada), as we saw on display during the recent presidential election (see The Donald Trump Phenomenon: Part 1: The American Nations).
So what then do the clusters of Han et al mean? While the original colonial ancestry of the country has been overrun by subsequent migrants, the founding stock remain as a genetic undercurrent – a common genetic thread – within each American nation. This is especially true in the nations of the American South, where the colonial settlers received less subsequent migration and the original stock remains strong. As Han et al put it:
Taken together with the IBD network clustering results (Table 1), the visualizations of the genealogical data in North America (Fig. 3) highlight broad-scale demographic trends, as well as patterns specific to individual populations
The five largest clusters (third set of rows in Table 1), which we describe as assimilated immigrant clusters, account for a large portion (60%) of the IBD network and exhibit a markedly different profile. Lacking distinctive affiliations to non-US populations, they show almost no differentiation in allele frequencies (FST at most 0.001; Supplementary Table 5) and high levels of IBD to non-cluster members (Supplementary Data 2), suggestive of high gene flow between these clusters. Moreover, few members of these clusters could be assigned to a stable subset, indicating that this clustering is largely driven by continuous variation in IBD. Genealogical data reveal a north-to-south trend (Fig. 5), most consistently east of the Mississippi River (Fig. 3). These findings imply greater east-west than north-south gene flow, which is broadly consistent with recent westward expansion of European settlers in the United States, and possibly somewhat limited north-south migration due to cultural differences.
The descendants of the Puritans, for example, while hardly the dominant genetic group across Yankeedom, nonetheless cluster together because people across Greater New England share that ancestry. This is true for the other nations as well.
Curiously, Han et al seem to have found two distinct currents of Appalachian settlement. I’m unclear about what this represents.
Some more interesting bits of information appear when you dig into Han et al’s supplementary info:
For Yankeedom, we see that the inferred genetic origin area is encompasses East Anglia and Kent, the home of the Puritan settlers. We also see the Scandinavian signal that is the home of many Mormon converts.
This group is also evident along the Left Coast, reflecting the Yankees’ historical settlement there.
For the Midlands, we see that the inferred source area is around Yorkshire in England. Also, the strong German signal corresponds to the Palatine.
For some reason, two Appalachian populations seem to appear. The main difference in Europe appears to be a stronger signal from Germany in the northern population.
For the Tidewater and Deep South, the home of the English Cavaliers (see The Cavaliers) in Southwest England is evidence. The Scottish link (presumably Scots-Irish that settled in the Deep South) is also visible.
These are the “Midwestern immigrants”. As expected, this group is heavily Scandinavian and Eastern European (mostly Polish and Czech/Slovak). However, what’s interesting to me here is that the German settlement here is different from the Germans that settled in the east. These Germans aren’t so heavily from the Palatine, but are from farther north and east. This is interesting in light of my earlier post Germania’s Seed?; different German-Americans in different parts of the country hail from different parts of Germany. Behavioral differences among these different German-Americans are expected.
The genetic data now serve as the final confirmation of the existence of the American nations (if the mass of other data wasn’t already sufficient). These regional differences have and continue to have huge implications for American society, including the ongoing cultural and political struggle that is now playing out.
Indeed, even in the 2016 presidential election (despite being a bit less regionally skewed than previous years) the American nations still were clearly divided in same ways they were previously:
This is from Woodard’s How Colin Woodard’s ‘American Nations’ explains the 2016 presidential election. There he gives a fine analysis of the regional split in the vote. Rest assured, the divide would be more stark if the White vote alone were examined, especially for the Tidewater, the Deep South, and the Far West.
Trump did manage to pick up considerable support in Yankeedom and the Midlands relative to 2012 and 2008, but the regional split remains.
As it has remained throughout the country’s history. Understanding these divides will be key to understanding our country and its future.
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[…] (This is also published at The Unz Review) […]
Good post. I’ve been thinking about how Albion’s Seed relates to new paper by Han et al, and this is a good overview. That’s a great paper!
But….what’s less clear to me is if we’ve learned anything new beyond what we already knew. If it’s just confirmation, well, that’s fine.
The only thing that seems to jump out is south part of Tidewater. That’s the poorest alignment between Han et al and other existing ancestry/cultural/trump voter maps. Is that perhaps an area where something new is to be dug into where genetic ancestry aligns less closely to culture than other areas?
http://www.unz.com/jman/the-genetics-of-the-american-nations/#comment-1759620
Good point. The South seems to be the only original nation that still persists in a meaningful sense. You mostly encounter whites with British surnames and wholly or mostly British ancestry in the South or among Southern transplants. In most of the rest of the country, whites with British surnames and wholly or mostly British ancestry are much less common.
Hi
Can you talk about Northern California. Who are the hippies?
They were a combination of old Californians with British names and revolutionary New York Jews with CPUSA parents
The weirdest thing about the “nations” map is the little column of “midlands” that runs up the middle of the Dakotas. Sure, Fargo and Sioux Falls are somewhat different than Bismarck and Rapid City, but what makes Jamestown and Aberdeen so distinct from the both of them? You don’t actually need to connect Iowa to Ontario, since you didn’t connect Louisiana to Quebec.
But....what's less clear to me is if we've learned anything new beyond what we already knew. If it's just confirmation, well, that's fine.
The only thing that seems to jump out is south part of Tidewater. That's the poorest alignment between Han et al and other existing ancestry/cultural/trump voter maps. Is that perhaps an area where something new is to be dug into where genetic ancestry aligns less closely to culture than other areas?
That seems to be the part of the Tidewater that fits most, actually.
Han et al note that these genetic boundaries are very fuzzy.
Can you talk about Northern California. Who are the hippies?
The nations of the West were settled by self-selected migrants of all stripes. Ancestry is a little less important than the characteristics of the founding individuals (and on-going migrants).
It’s not done just to connect Ontario to Iowa.
Also, in the supplemental info of Han et al, take a look at the Mennonites, or look again closely at the Midlands genetic map above.
The scatter diagrams were sometimes hard to follow, but it seems to me that “e pluribus unum” is about to fracture (and yes I know it referred originally to states). My other observation is drawn from Figure 1, which shows the proportion of various racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. I strongly suspect that it would have been better for the descendants of the population in 1850 to have have maintained the ethnic/racial mix of 1850 (essentially the position taken by the “Know Nothing Party”) indefinitely, even if it meant a much smaller population for the U.S. I know historians roll their eyes about contrary to fact speculation, but there’s probably a lesson to be drawn for the terrifying demographic future now facing the United States.
Without immigrants to compete for jobs and living space, there is a good chance the fertility of the colonial stock would have remained high. Maybe the U.S. population wouldn’t be a whole lot smaller now.
That said, I’m in no position to complain.
Now, talk of lower fertility rates are seen as a crisis. We're told that Japan isn't replacing its population, the horrors!
So much of everything is One Fad After Another. In 50 years, this notion that everyone should be able to move anywhere and that immigration controls are somehow immoral will be a subject of ridicule, and depending on how chaotic and painful are the next decade or two, the leading lights of Open Borders may be regarded by history with disgust now mostly reserved for the likes of Pol Pot.
Since I believe that we’ve spend 50 years in a Utopian Delusion, a folie a plusiers, and that when the fiat-money/debt-orgy bubble finally detonates, it will coincide with rage and distrust that are a perfect inversion of the “We Are The World” that animated public policies like Open Borders and scattered-site Section 8 shuffling of very disparate peoples together, I try to see how the coming wave of in-grouping will be affected by these geographic distributions.
Is there enough common ground between the various “Nations” that they will coalesce politically to retake and defend what my ancestors built in North America, or will they behave like the various Native American tribes whose inter-tribal hostility enabled a divide and conquer take-over?
In my perusal of your work, you’ve made no bones about hoping that what brought your parents to the USA can be defended, and that only if those whose ancestors built it are the predominant population can that be effected. This means my question should not offend your sense of right and wrong.
I guess my question is, if the USA descends into a period of conflict to defend the pre-1965 mix of people here, is it safe to assume that being a person who explicitly prefers that pre-1965 mix should relocate to Greater Appalachia or other clearly red-leaning areas on the 2016 Trump map? If the USA breaks up politically along fault lines now in evidence, the genetic predispositions of people merit serious consideration from a long-term safety standpoint.
Have you any thoughts about this? I know you claim to live in Yankeedom but the sentiments there need to change radically for your neighbors to reject the pathological altruism that created the looming demographic crisis.
Is it not amazing to see how sentiments change? Forty years ago people were freaked out about overpopulation and any hint of a smaller census would have been celebrated.
Now, talk of lower fertility rates are seen as a crisis. We’re told that Japan isn’t replacing its population, the horrors!
So much of everything is One Fad After Another. In 50 years, this notion that everyone should be able to move anywhere and that immigration controls are somehow immoral will be a subject of ridicule, and depending on how chaotic and painful are the next decade or two, the leading lights of Open Borders may be regarded by history with disgust now mostly reserved for the likes of Pol Pot.
Perhaps also subject to ridicule will be the idea that capital can go wherever it wants, but labor cannot . . .
Should be subject to ridicule now. Not that I am a believer in "open borders."
I am a believer in not letting capital roam wherever it wants all over the globe. But if that is to be the dispensation, then people must be able to follow it and work wherever they want and can get a job.
The Acadians came from what’s now Nova Scotia, not Quebec, though there were later French immigrants from all over.
Thanks for the reply. Samuel P. Huntington made a similar point in his book Who Are We? When I look at my family history I often find families with eight children. My father had 21 first cousins on one side, my daughter has four on both sides. I wonder whether a significantly lower population would be that bad. I’m old enough to remember the United States when it had less than 200 million people and it didn’t seem empty.
I wish you would stop using the American nations map. While broadly right in some areas much of it is preposterous and laughable. For example, who would group Southern New Jersey, Toronto, the Texas/Oklahoma Panhandle, and Southern Manitoba,in one region/nation of North America? Whether it is meant to be a mere cultural, regional grouping or a possible sovereign nation it is grotesque.
At the very LEAST you should separate much of Ontario from the Midlands.
There's no logical way San Diego and Tijuana (or El Paso/Juarez) can be considered part of the same Mexamerica/El Norte "nation." The US-Mexican border is probably the starkest economic and civilizational faultline in the world, hence the need for a wall.
Same with lumping Miami and Havana (or Palm Beach and Port-au-Prince) in the same pan-Caribbean nation. That's not to say that these heavily Hispanic Southwestern and South Florida sub-nations don't exist within the United States, maybe they do maybe they don't, but they definitely don't extend into Mexico or the West Indies.
In Canada, Quebec is obviously its own nation, as is Nunavut, the Inuit ethnostate carved out of the Northwest Territories in 1999. Newfoundland has its own national history and unique West Country English/Irish fisherfolk culture.
The Maritimes are kind of a Newfy-Canadian hybrid nation, a 'saltwater Appalachia' not really like Yankeedom at all. Scottish culture is probably stronger there than anywhere outside the auld country.
As for the rest of Canada, I think it's a distinct nation as well. From Toronto to Vancouver there is a fairly homogeneous Canadian culture and dialect that sets it apart from any of the American nations. The founding stock of English Canada were proudly British, disproportionately Scottish and heavily Anglican, but the hearth of their culture is actually in a foreign nation: Montreal.
The British built Montreal into the largest city in Canada, were the majority of the population through most of the 19th century, and dominated it economically up to the 1960s. But in the beginning it was chosen as the base for the conquest and exploitation of half a continent by swashbucklers like Alexander Mackenzie and the North West Company, the true founding fathers of the Canadian nation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_West_Company
“Curiously, Han et al seem to have found two distinct currents of Appalachian settlement. I’m unclear about what this represents.”
The northern group is the Appalachian group that came down the Shenadoah Valley and then spread down the Ohio River and into Missouri. This group is more Methodist, Nazarene, and Restoration Christian. This group was not secessionist in the Civil War.
The southern group is the lower classes from the Virginia settlement who headed into western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee and then southwestward to Arkansas and Texas. This group is Baptists. This group was secessionist in the Civil War.
The denominational religious differences helped keep these two groups separate.
There is also a 3rd group, which is the static backwoods hill folk of southern West Virginia, western Virginia and eastern Kentucky.
Also, these clusters are clearly much more English and much less “Borderlander” than they are given credit for, with a large amount of people from Liverpool/Birmingham/Manchester/Leeds, etc., areas infamous for kidnapping and origins of indentured servants in the 1600′s.
I’m from New Jersey. JayMan, care to explain this? Southern NJ is nothing like those areas, correct me if I’m wrong.
Scrapple.
Vast open areas with orthogonal roads. I’ve been to southern NJ. The parallels are there.
One of the complaints I get about the American nations model is that “X is region is nothing like Y nation.” My main answer to that is that it’s important to look at the big picture. Also, it’s important to recognize that there is variation within the nations as well.
"Vast open areas with orthogonal roads" could apply to many areas of many regions.
I think both Colin Woodard and Joel Garreau made a big mistake by North Americanizing their inherently United Statesian nations.
There’s no logical way San Diego and Tijuana (or El Paso/Juarez) can be considered part of the same Mexamerica/El Norte “nation.” The US-Mexican border is probably the starkest economic and civilizational faultline in the world, hence the need for a wall.
Same with lumping Miami and Havana (or Palm Beach and Port-au-Prince) in the same pan-Caribbean nation. That’s not to say that these heavily Hispanic Southwestern and South Florida sub-nations don’t exist within the United States, maybe they do maybe they don’t, but they definitely don’t extend into Mexico or the West Indies.
In Canada, Quebec is obviously its own nation, as is Nunavut, the Inuit ethnostate carved out of the Northwest Territories in 1999. Newfoundland has its own national history and unique West Country English/Irish fisherfolk culture.
The Maritimes are kind of a Newfy-Canadian hybrid nation, a ‘saltwater Appalachia’ not really like Yankeedom at all. Scottish culture is probably stronger there than anywhere outside the auld country.
As for the rest of Canada, I think it’s a distinct nation as well. From Toronto to Vancouver there is a fairly homogeneous Canadian culture and dialect that sets it apart from any of the American nations. The founding stock of English Canada were proudly British, disproportionately Scottish and heavily Anglican, but the hearth of their culture is actually in a foreign nation: Montreal.
The British built Montreal into the largest city in Canada, were the majority of the population through most of the 19th century, and dominated it economically up to the 1960s. But in the beginning it was chosen as the base for the conquest and exploitation of half a continent by swashbucklers like Alexander Mackenzie and the North West Company, the true founding fathers of the Canadian nation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_West_Company
I have traced my ancestors back to Normandy in 102x AD , crossing the Channel in 1066. They stayed in Northern England till the 1630′s when my paternal ancestor left Northenden, Cheshire moving to King William, Virginia. The next 150 years saw my ancestors move 70 miles west to Louisa County VA , then moving 600 miles to Simpson County Kentucky in the early 1800′s.
My Ancestry DNA showed 52% Europe West, 33% Great Britain, 13% Ireland, and 2% trace of West Asia. This is what Ancestry has to say about “trace regions” : “These are regions where you seem to have just a trace amount of genetic ethnicity — there is only a small amount of evidence supporting the regions as part of your genetic ethnicity. Because both the estimated amount and the range of the estimate are small, it is possible that these regions appear by chance and are not actually part of your genetic ethnicity.”
publicprofiler.org/Map.aspx?name=MALLORY&year=1881&altyear=1998&country=GB&type=name
Is Scrappel common in the other regions listed in that comment? I looked it up and it appears to be mostly limited to mid atlantic states. I suppose your midlands region isn’t entirely insane in within the US but what justification do you have for including the Canadian regions in the midlands? When your maps show that region of Canada they mostly seem to indicate that it is significantly different from the American midlands, and there are a bunch of obvious cultural differences.
“Vast open areas with orthogonal roads” could apply to many areas of many regions.
[…] JayMan has an excellent article at Unz.com on the genetics of the American Nations: […]
So “American nations” are more like Weber’s ideal types, analytical tools, rather than real entities? So could someone possibly create maps of “sub nations”( ideal types within ideal types) so to speak ., thus making a Hegelian journey from abstract to concrete?
"Vast open areas with orthogonal roads" could apply to many areas of many regions.
Yes, the orthogonal roads are a bit of a stretch. I’m in Wisconsin at the moment and all I have to do is drive down my driveway to be on an orthogonal road in a vast open area, and could drive for hours without leaving that type of road.
As per the genetic map, they are real entities.
But there is further structure beneath the overall divisions.
Who made the decision to include much of Canada in the midlands, what was their justification. I will repeat though, Scrapple seems like an odd choice to defend the midlands, because if anything it greatly weakens the case for it! Scrapple goes across 3-5 different regions and only bits of those regions, it is not in most of the midlands.
Scrapple divides the midlands of this map instead of uniting them. It’s in parts of Tidewater, Yankeedom, New Netherlands, probably Greater Appalachia, and Midlands.
[…] has an excellent article at Unz.com on the genetics of the American Nations:“And now, a new paper in Nature bears out the genetic roots of the American nations. In […]
That’s how the mythos are created. ‘And the common progenitor of Americans was Amer, brother of Aeneas, who left Troy from another, less documented gate’.
De origine americanorum, let’s hear again from Americas very own voice, Kurt Wonnegut (of German descent).
In ‘Pleasantville’, the school geography describes only two streets of the town. We can imagine some post-apocalyptic history lesson based on Jayman’s mythos. And he could proudly repeat the voice of the same great Writer,
.
Jayman, my question to you is a rwo step one inasmuch as it is logically possible that the answer to the first part is totally dismissive.
I recently came across the work of a 30 something Canadian at Melbourne University whose three books all seem to have something to do with what the title of one of them “Delusions of Gender” indicates. The name of the pleasant sounding author is Cordelia Fine. I would be interested in your view of her work which seemed to put a lot of emphasis on the plasticity of the brain. Whatever one may think of her application of what is known about neuroplasticity to the differences and lack thereof between men and women it would seem to imply that the behavioural traits you mention as subject to genetic inheritance should be found to be malleable over time according to the ways of the population with which children and their parents mux when young. Fair comment – in theory? And is he inference borne out by facts?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/5s2cc0/chinese_factory_replaces_90_of_human_workers_with/
lower/smaller population is going to be a godsend in the future.
I recently came across the work of a 30 something Canadian at Melbourne University whose three books all seem to have something to do with what the title of one of them "Delusions of Gender" indicates. The name of the pleasant sounding author is Cordelia Fine. I would be interested in your view of her work which seemed to put a lot of emphasis on the plasticity of the brain. Whatever one may think of her application of what is known about neuroplasticity to the differences and lack thereof between men and women it would seem to imply that the behavioural traits you mention as subject to genetic inheritance should be found to be malleable over time according to the ways of the population with which children and their parents mux when young. Fair comment - in theory? And is he inference borne out by facts?
What do you think?
Such nonsense. Haven’t read such bullshit since the many diatribes against the Gaels in Scotland as lazy, worthless genetic stock and the pronouncement that a mystical Ukrainian progenitor race really is the master race.
The commercialisation of clan landholding led to the Highlands being denuded of the Tacksmen class, many of who emigrated. to America So the remnants were probably not very impressive. The Highlands were the most lawless and violent part of Britain, and the Tacksmen were the chief's enforcers, in a region vastly more dangerous than the Borders (where the Ulster Scots were not from anyway, they were from the closest parts of Scotland: Ayrshire and Galloway). Canada got the highest concentration of Highlanders, and it has never been all that violent.
Yamnaya looked a lot more like a swarthier Jack Palance than Max Von Sydow, so it is indeed mystical to think they ended up like modern north Europeans by simple mixture.
In the Midwest, West, and large parts of the South, you have the Northwest Ordinance system of square mile sections with section line roads, which became main streets as urbanization progressed. In some other areas you have roads or streets which are either paralell or perpendicular to a nearby waterway, and thus often orthogonal to each other. It’s not a binary choice between the Northwest Ordinance or roads following the cowpaths, although the latter situation does exist in certain places.
I swear the commenters here just aren’t that good.
The Midlands west of the Alleghenies are as much or more a buffer between New England and Southern influenced areas than an extension of Pennsylvania. Try driving down the road on I-65 from Gary to Indianapolis or on I-55 from Joliet to Springfield.
for those who have not read Fischer, it is a great book. He also trashes the jewish school of America as a ‘Nation of Immigrants.’ His word, “seed” is intentional and he says so. It is the genetics of Albion, and by implication, Other Seeds are very different. Our splendid genetics , the whitest of the white….etc.
Joe Webb
But....what's less clear to me is if we've learned anything new beyond what we already knew. If it's just confirmation, well, that's fine.
The only thing that seems to jump out is south part of Tidewater. That's the poorest alignment between Han et al and other existing ancestry/cultural/trump voter maps. Is that perhaps an area where something new is to be dug into where genetic ancestry aligns less closely to culture than other areas?
Yes, it is the enormous number of “non-Tidewater” folk now living in the Tidewater (as employees of Uncle Scam in and around DC). They are outliers, but they now outnumber the real Tidewater population. This same thing is happening quicker and quicker now to the Deep South, too, as Yankee snowbirds invade and colonize for their retirement in a good climate. It promises even more–and deeper–divisions in society. In 1861, these nations were geographical. Next time, they won’t be.
The Yankee will never change. He will have to reap a harvest from the seeds he has sown. And good riddance to bad rubbish.
My own own English ancestors from the Deep South and Virginia can trace their roots back the southwest section of England, at least the ones that are traceable, and I have yet to find an immigrant in the woodpile. My ancestors were colonists, which is typical of Southerners. I came across an old family history that claims Norman roots, but I have no idea how anyone would know that, since that line of the family goes cold in the mid 1700s in Virginia. They were mostly Methodists, but one line was from a group of Quakers living in South Carolina, which later converted to become Methodists.
I’m surprised that more German influence wasn’t found in the Deep South and Appalachian areas of the South. Some of the earliest settlers in Georgia were German Lutherans, and their descendants are still common in pockets along the coast. The only non-English ancestors that I have found were German Moravians and Swiss colonists in North Carolina and Virginia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacksman
The commercialisation of clan landholding led to the Highlands being denuded of the Tacksmen class, many of who emigrated. to America So the remnants were probably not very impressive. The Highlands were the most lawless and violent part of Britain, and the Tacksmen were the chief’s enforcers, in a region vastly more dangerous than the Borders (where the Ulster Scots were not from anyway, they were from the closest parts of Scotland: Ayrshire and Galloway). Canada got the highest concentration of Highlanders, and it has never been all that violent.
Yamnaya looked a lot more like a swarthier Jack Palance than Max Von Sydow, so it is indeed mystical to think they ended up like modern north Europeans by simple mixture.
Jayman is a black married to a white woman. He has kids with her. He should write about racial degeneracy from miscegenation.
I think the 2016 election was the first that regional differences began to be negated by racial differences.
I love both Woodard’s work and Albion’s Seed.
Great books.
But am surprised that Jay Man ignores the contribution to this area of study by Joel Garreau, Nine Nations of North America (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Nations_of_North_America), published way back in 1981.
Woodard’s American Nations presents a better historical overview and analysis (in particular his spotlighting of the true underlying theme of the Civil War as a fight for the American West was a brilliant eye opener for me; also his linking of the different strains of racism within the South, depending on origin of the whites involved), but Garreau goes more into the cultural strains and also doesn’t stop at the border of the USA.
Sorry, but I just cannot buy all this. My being a Democrat or Republican has more to do with my family’s culture then with their genetics. We are not genetic automatons.
Yes clearly, genetics dominate human emotions and the capacity to think – but not what we think. Culture dominates – not genetics.
Community think (tied to geography) dominates outcomes more than anything else. Geography has more to do with genetic selection and intellectual thinking than any other factor.
Biological genetic evolution is about finding and building a safe place within a geometric location.
If one were to move to the Arctic – one’s offspring would eventually evolve to become an Eskimo.
Peace — Art
I suspect the answer is that Cordelia Fine exaggerates the extent to which plasticity is ever likely to be able to eradicate differences between men and women and that you exaggerate the importance of genes in relation to America’s regional populations (not including the notorious 1 sd difference even if it is fundamentally more like 0.5).
Over to you who know far more evidentiary facts than I.
Would you care to explain how the “snowbirds” and people planning retirement in warmer climates threaten more and deeper divisions in society of a kind that matter? In Australia it is suggested that rich Chinese are contributing to the unaffordability of housing for the young but, even apart from that not having much truth in it, that sort problem can hardly be the case in the US south.
That's easy to explain. Imagine your roadways being overrun by hordes of 70-somethings driving RVs and Crown Vics towing campers, all having no clue where they are going, being half blind, with the reaction time of snails, and being certain that they are the only people in the region who know how to drive. That's worth having another civil war over all by itself.
Seriously, these people are a pain in the ass. All they do is bitch and moan and complain that things aren't done the way they are wherever they are from. Transplants to the South are generally a pain in the ass. I don't know how much harm they are doing, but they don't help much.
Now, talk of lower fertility rates are seen as a crisis. We're told that Japan isn't replacing its population, the horrors!
So much of everything is One Fad After Another. In 50 years, this notion that everyone should be able to move anywhere and that immigration controls are somehow immoral will be a subject of ridicule, and depending on how chaotic and painful are the next decade or two, the leading lights of Open Borders may be regarded by history with disgust now mostly reserved for the likes of Pol Pot.
” In 50 years, this notion that everyone should be able to move anywhere and that immigration controls are somehow immoral will be a subject of ridicule,”
Perhaps also subject to ridicule will be the idea that capital can go wherever it wants, but labor cannot . . .
Should be subject to ridicule now. Not that I am a believer in “open borders.”
I am a believer in not letting capital roam wherever it wants all over the globe. But if that is to be the dispensation, then people must be able to follow it and work wherever they want and can get a job.
Would that be your capital or someone else's?
There's a damn good reason Mexico has laws preventing foreigners from flying in and buying up all the prime real estate.
America's love affair with global "capitalism" will come to a screeching halt when the trillions of dollars in IOU's exported under Dollar Hegemony come flooding back from Japan, China, et.al., and almost literally buy the continent of North America right out from under their feet.
These past 50 years will someday occupy many scholars' lifetimes in study and debate, so astonishingly daffy were things that came to be seen as normal.
The first among many is that things that make sense in a community of like people who share a common geography, culture and language can scale up to the "global" community (which is nothing of the sort.)
As an aside, "scale down" explanations appear to work for me; "scale up" theories are often dangerously wrong, however.
Edit: mistake
Can you talk about Northern California. Who are the hippies?
They all grew up and are now retired grandparents making plans for nursing homes.
They were a combination of old Californians with British names and revolutionary New York Jews with CPUSA parents
It is a comment worthy of the content of this essay. If there were more than empty supposition, there might be something worth commenting about. I swear, such articles here just aren’t that good.
I have wrote about the degeneracy of White Nationalism:
The Problem with HBD, the Dark Enlightenment, Neoreaction, Alt-Rightism, and All That Jazz
Regional differences were present if a bit less pronounced compared to previous elections. See Woodard’s piece linked in post.
Regional differences were present if a bit less pronounced compared to previous elections. See Woodard’s piece linked in post.
Great books.
But am surprised that Jay Man ignores the contribution to this area of study by Joel Garreau, Nine Nations of North America (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Nations_of_North_America), published way back in 1981.
Woodard's American Nations presents a better historical overview and analysis (in particular his spotlighting of the true underlying theme of the Civil War as a fight for the American West was a brilliant eye opener for me; also his linking of the different strains of racism within the South, depending on origin of the whites involved), but Garreau goes more into the cultural strains and also doesn't stop at the border of the USA.
Garreau doesn’t really add much to the story.
That's funny.
Garreau's book published in 1981.
AFAIK he was the first to bring this type of analysis to a popular audience. He wasn't obsessed with genetics as the basis of bahavior, however. His was really the seminal work.
See: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/07/03/where-do-borders-need-to-be-redrawn/nine-nations-of-north-america-30-years-later
Hackett Fischer, in Albion's Seed, published in 1989, also not obsessed with genetics. The principle idea underlying Fischer's work is the longevity of *cultural forms* and values. As is Garreau's. Not the genetic basis of behavior.
American Nations, published in 2011. Doubtless the idea for the book was sparked by Garreau, although Woodard doesn't acknowledge the existence of the prev. work.
From Wall Srreet Journal review:
“Mr. Woodard’s approach is breezier than [David Hackett] Fischer’s and more historical than [Joel] Garreau’s, but he has earned a place on the shelf between them." Note: "between them."
I am kind of surprised by Jay Man's response to my post. Also, I see no mention in his piece of epigenetics. I don't know how one can discuss the genetic basis of behavior without referring to epigenetics.
In short, what is really the point of all of this?
Yes clearly, genetics dominate human emotions and the capacity to think – but not what we think. Culture dominates - not genetics.
Community think (tied to geography) dominates outcomes more than anything else. Geography has more to do with genetic selection and intellectual thinking than any other factor.
Biological genetic evolution is about finding and building a safe place within a geometric location.
If one were to move to the Arctic – one’s offspring would eventually evolve to become an Eskimo.
Peace --- Art
From the previous American nations piece:
See the preceding reply to Art.
Then make your case against it. You don’t have a lot of room to make it, so good luck.
Would you care to explain how the “snowbirds” and people planning retirement in warmer climates threaten more and deeper divisions in society of a kind that matter?
That’s easy to explain. Imagine your roadways being overrun by hordes of 70-somethings driving RVs and Crown Vics towing campers, all having no clue where they are going, being half blind, with the reaction time of snails, and being certain that they are the only people in the region who know how to drive. That’s worth having another civil war over all by itself.
Seriously, these people are a pain in the ass. All they do is bitch and moan and complain that things aren’t done the way they are wherever they are from. Transplants to the South are generally a pain in the ass. I don’t know how much harm they are doing, but they don’t help much.
“Add”?
That’s funny.
Garreau’s book published in 1981.
AFAIK he was the first to bring this type of analysis to a popular audience. He wasn’t obsessed with genetics as the basis of bahavior, however. His was really the seminal work.
See: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/07/03/where-do-borders-need-to-be-redrawn/nine-nations-of-north-america-30-years-later
Hackett Fischer, in Albion’s Seed, published in 1989, also not obsessed with genetics. The principle idea underlying Fischer’s work is the longevity of *cultural forms* and values. As is Garreau’s. Not the genetic basis of behavior.
American Nations, published in 2011. Doubtless the idea for the book was sparked by Garreau, although Woodard doesn’t acknowledge the existence of the prev. work.
From Wall Srreet Journal review:
“Mr. Woodard’s approach is breezier than [David Hackett] Fischer’s and more historical than [Joel] Garreau’s, but he has earned a place on the shelf between them.” Note: “between them.”
I am kind of surprised by Jay Man’s response to my post. Also, I see no mention in his piece of epigenetics. I don’t know how one can discuss the genetic basis of behavior without referring to epigenetics.
In short, what is really the point of all of this?
Can you talk about Northern California. Who are the hippies?
1968+ Counter Cultural White Fashionistas, often led by Jews. Have spent decades competing with each other to smash up 1950′s American society, and now that it’s smashed up they still expect their pensions.
Physical description: More into drugs than sport, straggly long grey hair, faded blue jeans, often sandals, general tatty appearance.
Music: Neil Young (although recently confused by his opposition to the Iraq war)
Food: Organic/vegetarian
Politics: Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, open borders, affirmative action, Howard Zinn, free everything (trade, sex, drugs, open marriage, toilet access, outsourcing etc.). Couldn’t care less about WMD & 9/11 lies, destruction of Middle East (they’re only programmed to attack Anglo society).
Well I’m not fresh uncultivated ground for these arguments because of early acqusintance with Eysenck but I wonder if the data makes sufficient distinction between e.g. the kind of Republican or Democrat – or rebel against parents – that may prevail geographically. Easy to imagine a kid becoming an authoritarian (or maybe bleeding heart if his genes helped that) Democrat in reaction to authoritarian active Republican Dad. But equally he might become a liberal Republican and not be noticed in the gross data.
I see some white guilt-ed zombies on college campuses are now wearing patches and badges to signify their race and tell other races how shameful they are to be privileged with so much including a higher IQ. Maybe soon they can have numbers tattooed on their forearms and march off to concentration camps to really make amends .
Yes clearly, genetics dominate human emotions and the capacity to think – but not what we think. Culture dominates - not genetics.
Community think (tied to geography) dominates outcomes more than anything else. Geography has more to do with genetic selection and intellectual thinking than any other factor.
Biological genetic evolution is about finding and building a safe place within a geometric location.
If one were to move to the Arctic – one’s offspring would eventually evolve to become an Eskimo.
Peace --- Art
The study of genetics and especially IQ takes some digging due to being repressed for many years partially for fear of offending those to the left of the mean and other reasons as well. I ‘m not sure how to say this so I’ll just come right out and say it. Your comments are totally incorrect and stink to high heaven. Doing better research you may learn about the importance of IQ and come to see it as THE most precious human gift vs some controversial and subject to be trivialized and explained away.
That's funny.
Garreau's book published in 1981.
AFAIK he was the first to bring this type of analysis to a popular audience. He wasn't obsessed with genetics as the basis of bahavior, however. His was really the seminal work.
See: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/07/03/where-do-borders-need-to-be-redrawn/nine-nations-of-north-america-30-years-later
Hackett Fischer, in Albion's Seed, published in 1989, also not obsessed with genetics. The principle idea underlying Fischer's work is the longevity of *cultural forms* and values. As is Garreau's. Not the genetic basis of behavior.
American Nations, published in 2011. Doubtless the idea for the book was sparked by Garreau, although Woodard doesn't acknowledge the existence of the prev. work.
From Wall Srreet Journal review:
“Mr. Woodard’s approach is breezier than [David Hackett] Fischer’s and more historical than [Joel] Garreau’s, but he has earned a place on the shelf between them." Note: "between them."
I am kind of surprised by Jay Man's response to my post. Also, I see no mention in his piece of epigenetics. I don't know how one can discuss the genetic basis of behavior without referring to epigenetics.
In short, what is really the point of all of this?
Quite easily. See here:
I guess I need to add a disclaimer in my posts noting that transgenerational epigenetics is a bunch of hot air.
Heredity is powerful.
The point of the behavioral genetic chart above was to show that that generally doesn’t happen. Political views are heritable with little effect of rearing or local environment.
I wonder if there is a gene for obnoxiousness!
Doing better research you may learn about the importance of IQ and come to see it as THE most precious human gift
Hmm – if you were in the Arctic and in need of help, who would chose to help you Newton or an average IQ Eskimo?
It is true that IQ gains knowledge – but knowledge is king! Think about it.
Peace — Art
Political views are heritable with little effect of rearing or local environment.
That is ridiculous – I have changed political sides in a day’s time – and then later changed back – and then changed back again.
I assure that my genes did not change in a day.
Peace — Art
Excuse me just getting back from lunch and firing this off but my immediate thought was to try and find some comparable situations wherein to consider the relative importance og genes.
Religion is an obvious one. I have heard it suggested that about 15 per cent of people (but you might well say “which people, by descent?”) Just lack the god genes and aren’t believers. But for the rest what determines which unprovable lot of religious stuff do they adhere to and why?
In India one would undoubtedly find a remarkable similarity of genes amongst different castes but you might say that was not significant because they were all Hindus. So… move the argument to the Muslims and Christians who have also probably been connected genetically by reason of their having been low caste people who wanted something better. Then look at communities where they all had plenty of exposure to Muslim and Christian proselytisers but some resisted conversion. After allowing for age differences and other practical matters why was it so?
Don’t worry about me ever becoming blank slatish. One of our lunch guests had just travelled premium economy class from England in two legs (12500 miles via Abu Dhabi), walked in from his daughter’s car and made perfectly good sense in conversation without hearing aids. He is 102 (with a sister going strong at 98).
The Atheist Narrative
Perhaps also subject to ridicule will be the idea that capital can go wherever it wants, but labor cannot . . .
Should be subject to ridicule now. Not that I am a believer in "open borders."
I am a believer in not letting capital roam wherever it wants all over the globe. But if that is to be the dispensation, then people must be able to follow it and work wherever they want and can get a job.
I am a believer in not letting capital roam wherever it wants
Would that be your capital or someone else’s?
My Ancestry DNA showed 52% Europe West, 33% Great Britain, 13% Ireland, and 2% trace of West Asia. This is what Ancestry has to say about "trace regions" : "These are regions where you seem to have just a trace amount of genetic ethnicity — there is only a small amount of evidence supporting the regions as part of your genetic ethnicity. Because both the estimated amount and the range of the estimate are small, it is possible that these regions appear by chance and are not actually part of your genetic ethnicity."
No black in there?
Genetics and DNA rule not geography.
It is all about the organization of energy.
For a biological species to exist, it must find a niche within a physical geographic environment - period.
The species will alter or reorganize the geographic environment by some degree – period.
There are three organizing forces on our planet – physical forces, biological forces, and intellectual forces. One grows out of the other.
Clearly the intellectual forces are boss. There are few molecules on the surface of the Earth that have not been affect by human intelligence.
Today, the intellectual forces can destroy the current surface organization of the earth.
Peace --- Art
Genetics and DNA rule not geography.
It is all about the organization of energy.
For a biological species to exist, it must find a niche within a physical geographic environment – period.
The species will alter or reorganize the geographic environment by some degree – period.
There are three organizing forces on our planet – physical forces, biological forces, and intellectual forces. One grows out of the other.
Clearly the intellectual forces are boss. There are few molecules on the surface of the Earth that have not been affect by human intelligence.
Today, the intellectual forces can destroy the current surface organization of the earth.
Peace — Art
This is quite revealing, not as much about the subject, but about the Murican’s insatiable appetite for primitive, base and stupid ideas. Perhaps it is the influence of a salesman culture, that prioritizes the loud, obnoxious and easy to sell, that compels him to fetishize the genetic fallacy into a theory of everything.
What’s so stupid about it?
It amazes me how the Unz.com commenters manage to deny what is plainly in front of their faces.
My Ancestry DNA showed 52% Europe West, 33% Great Britain, 13% Ireland, and 2% trace of West Asia. This is what Ancestry has to say about "trace regions" : "These are regions where you seem to have just a trace amount of genetic ethnicity — there is only a small amount of evidence supporting the regions as part of your genetic ethnicity. Because both the estimated amount and the range of the estimate are small, it is possible that these regions appear by chance and are not actually part of your genetic ethnicity."
Mallory is an English name, mostly originating in Yorkshire.
publicprofiler.org/Map.aspx?name=MALLORY&year=1881&altyear=1998&country=GB&type=name
publicprofiler.org/Map.aspx?name=MALLORY&year=1881&altyear=1998&country=GB&type=name
Yes, my ancestors spent centuries in Yorkshire. The English spelling originated in Yorkshire. But go back far enough and it is French/Norman.
Not a bit. The only non white appears to be the Irish.
Your identification of “Borderlander” / “Puritan” / “Quaker” ancestry sources and the unscholarly annotation you have added seems highly arbitrary and do not reflect the distribution of high odds ratio sources within the British Isles in their original data. The main density of source dots for all the American clusters you’ve discussed is in about the same places within the British Isles.
They will need more data from PoBI but this looks closer to you being wrong (hardly an unfamiliar experience for you) than being right.
Perhaps also subject to ridicule will be the idea that capital can go wherever it wants, but labor cannot . . .
Should be subject to ridicule now. Not that I am a believer in "open borders."
I am a believer in not letting capital roam wherever it wants all over the globe. But if that is to be the dispensation, then people must be able to follow it and work wherever they want and can get a job.
As a reformed libertarian, I agree with you.
There’s a damn good reason Mexico has laws preventing foreigners from flying in and buying up all the prime real estate.
America’s love affair with global “capitalism” will come to a screeching halt when the trillions of dollars in IOU’s exported under Dollar Hegemony come flooding back from Japan, China, et.al., and almost literally buy the continent of North America right out from under their feet.
These past 50 years will someday occupy many scholars’ lifetimes in study and debate, so astonishingly daffy were things that came to be seen as normal.
The first among many is that things that make sense in a community of like people who share a common geography, culture and language can scale up to the “global” community (which is nothing of the sort.)
As an aside, “scale down” explanations appear to work for me; “scale up” theories are often dangerously wrong, however.
Many Americans who work hard and have good-paying jobs still cannot realistically afford much of the housing here in Los Angeles area, and not just downtown or near the ocean. Same with San Francisco.
In both cases, wealthy Chinese immigrants, and sometimes their "American-born" descendants, are bidding apartments and condos and houses alike to levels that are beyond our reach even with careful budgeting and saving. It's wrong and has to be stopped.
They will need more data from PoBI but this looks closer to you being wrong (hardly an unfamiliar experience for you) than being right.
See David Hackett Fischer
Here’s an idea: how about you supply better data and get back to me?
Excellent article.
My husband and I took a vacation in southern England last fall. He has ancestors who immigrated to Pennsylvania from Exeter in Devon. Clearly they did not all head for Virginia. What stood out to us was how much the people in Exeter looked like southerners in the United States. Especially the women. I half expected to hear a southern drawl but they were definitely English. Many reminded me of southern belles. In Bath, not so much.
One thing was consistent in our drive across southern England in a rented Vauxhall. We got lost frequently, and every time a friendly and helpful English person would help us find our way. So it is no surprise that southerners are friendly. It is part of their culture.
[…] “While the original colonial ancestry of the country has been overrun by subsequent migrants, the founding stock remain as a genetic undercurrent – a common genetic thread – within each American nation. This is especially true in the nations of the American South, where the colonial settlers received less subsequent migration and the original stock remains strong.” http://www.unz.com/jman/the-genetics-of-the-american-nations/ […]
Can you talk about Northern California. Who are the hippies?
Hippies aren’t an ethnic group. Neither are hipsters.
I have trouble with the genetic determinism bullshit, but I enjoy all the pretty maps. Before Woodard and Fisher there was Joel Garreau and his Nine Nations, which was more economic oriented and resembled Woodard’s map in the West but not in the East. Garreau justified and explained his boundaries. Woodard classifies every county in his maps and doesn’t explain why. So he makes egregious errors like putting San Bernardino County and the San Joaquin Valley in the Far West. Garreau put them in El Norte (MexAmerica) where they belong. I’m white (gavacho) but I identify as a non-Hispanic white OF El Norte. It’s part of my culture, my roots as a native of So Cal.
[…] were carved from a frontier that was north-south. But the frontier days are long gone. Look at http://www.unz.com/jman/the-genetics-of-the-american-nations/ . States that go more east-west are more likely to capture like-minded people. Additionally […]
This is the thesis:
“Previously I’ve established that these boundaries reflect genetic differences among different Americans in different places. This is because all human behavioral traits are heritable, with “nurture” (as it’s commonly thought of) playing a minimal to nonexistent role in each. This means that genetic differences between different peoples lead to differences in their behavioral traits, which, collectively, manifests as cultural differences.”
It seems that it is based on a very big, untested assumption. The existence of a correlation between “culture” and “genetics” does NOT prove “genetics determines culture”. The thesis is based on migration of genetically different groups that were already culturally different. It is equally valid to claim “movement of cultures can be followed by those genetic differences that exist in different cultural/geographic areas”. Your data/approach may be fundamentally incapable of distinguishing the two cases?
The lack of shared environmental effects in nationally representative behavioral genetic studies.
The high heritability of behavioral traits from said studies.All do, though.
"Previously I’ve established that these boundaries reflect genetic differences among different Americans in different places. This is because all human behavioral traits are heritable, with “nurture” (as it’s commonly thought of) playing a minimal to nonexistent role in each. This means that genetic differences between different peoples lead to differences in their behavioral traits, which, collectively, manifests as cultural differences."
It seems that it is based on a very big, untested assumption. The existence of a correlation between "culture" and "genetics" does NOT prove "genetics determines culture". The thesis is based on migration of genetically different groups that were already culturally different. It is equally valid to claim "movement of cultures can be followed by those genetic differences that exist in different cultural/geographic areas". Your data/approach may be fundamentally incapable of distinguishing the two cases?
The persistence of cultural patterns as long as the population that embrace them remains.
The lack of shared environmental effects in nationally representative behavioral genetic studies.
The high heritability of behavioral traits from said studies.
All do, though.
There's a damn good reason Mexico has laws preventing foreigners from flying in and buying up all the prime real estate.
America's love affair with global "capitalism" will come to a screeching halt when the trillions of dollars in IOU's exported under Dollar Hegemony come flooding back from Japan, China, et.al., and almost literally buy the continent of North America right out from under their feet.
These past 50 years will someday occupy many scholars' lifetimes in study and debate, so astonishingly daffy were things that came to be seen as normal.
The first among many is that things that make sense in a community of like people who share a common geography, culture and language can scale up to the "global" community (which is nothing of the sort.)
As an aside, "scale down" explanations appear to work for me; "scale up" theories are often dangerously wrong, however.
Excellent point about America being bought out from under our feet.
Many Americans who work hard and have good-paying jobs still cannot realistically afford much of the housing here in Los Angeles area, and not just downtown or near the ocean. Same with San Francisco.
In both cases, wealthy Chinese immigrants, and sometimes their “American-born” descendants, are bidding apartments and condos and houses alike to levels that are beyond our reach even with careful budgeting and saving. It’s wrong and has to be stopped.
I am German-American and the “Yankee” imprint upon the Northern Midwest was wiped out by waves of Central and Eastern Europeans.
Minnesota even resembles Scandinavia.